New Maternalisms: Redux

New Maternalisms Redux is the third and last in the New Maternalisms exhibition series (following Toronto 2012 and Santiago 2014). It features five performance and project-based artists drawn from the first two exhibitions: Lenka Clayton, Jess Dobkin, Alejandra Herrera, Courtney Kessel, & Jill Miller. The work of these artists represents a spectrum of experience; it includes queer and straight identified mothers, single and partnered mothers, mothers of differently abled children, mothers of twins and singletons, and a range of race/class/economic privilege. Together they investigate the maternal as an important political and affective force.

A three-day colloquium, Mapping the Maternal: Art, Ethics, and the Anthropocene, was held in conjunction with the exhibition, with participants representing some of the most prominent voices on feminist art and the maternal today. The keynote presentation was delivered by internationally recognized feminist theorist and art historian, Griselda Pollock. This colloquium, open to the public, brought crucial thinking on the anthropocene and anthropogenic climate change together with thinking on the maternal as metaphor, practice, and politics.